by Julie Kriss
“Do I have to know?”
I thought about that. “Well, I think it’s a good idea. And I think it could work. I have a few different locations in mind—”
“We’ll go location scouting,” Lauren said. She wasn’t bossy or controlling, just decisive. Confident. I felt my own confidence growing, just listening to her talk about this like it was no big deal. “We can go sometime this week and you can tell me all about it, show me what locations you’re thinking of. When are you free? Are you available during the day while Dylan is in school?”
My confidence fumbled. I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t living at Ryan’s, at least not right now. “Um, yes,” I said. “I have a class tomorrow, but I can do Tuesday.”
“Tuesday,” Lauren said. “Come to my place at, say ten? I’ll text you the address.”
I agreed, and after I hung up I sat there, trying to breathe. I could have used a paper bag to breathe into. Then I looked at my phone again and saw no messages from Ryan, and felt like crying. I was going insane.
So I scrolled through my contacts again and found another one. I hit Call.
“Hi, Kate.”
Tara’s voice was calm and friendly. I immediately felt better.
“Are you busy?” I asked her. Sunday was her day off, but I had no idea what she did on her weekends. Probably banged Jace nonstop. I couldn’t blame her.
But she heard something in my voice, because she said, “No, I’m not busy. What do you need to talk about?”
That was all I needed. The words started coming, and I let them. I talked and talked. I told her everything, about me and Ryan, about five years ago, about the sex, about how I felt last night and what I had been planning to do. I told her about Amber showing up, about Ryan leaving with her and not coming back. I told her about this morning, the hotel, sitting in Pike’s Park by myself in the cold, feeling good and terrible at the same time. I told her everything.
Tara didn’t freak out. She didn’t even say Wow or OMG. She just said, “Okay. First of all, I think you’ve done the right thing, at least for now.”
I felt something loosen in me, like an elastic that had been twisted too tight. “You do?”
“Yes. It’s obvious that your situation is difficult right now. You’re living in Ryan’s house, and you’re his employee. You’re also sleeping with him and you have feelings for him, and at the same time you’re taking a course and trying to start your career. And now Dylan’s mother has showed up. No wonder you’re confused. If I were your counselor, I’d advise you to remove yourself physically from the situation, at least for a little while. You can’t make good decisions while you’re in the middle of it.”
I slumped into my seat as she talked. “Part of me feels like a heel,” I said.
“I think you need to give notice,” Tara said thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s possible for you to be his employee anymore. As for the rest of it, the two of you are going to have to figure it out. You’ll have to communicate.”
I knew what she was saying. “You mean I have to talk to him. I can’t avoid him forever.”
“Well, yes. Talking is really the best thing to do. But your emotions are running high since this woman showed up.”
I closed my eyes and said the thing that scared me. “She’s Dylan’s mother. Isn’t it best if he has his mother in his life? If they raise him together? That at least means she’s going to be around, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Tara said. “Custody is very complicated, and she gave Dylan up at birth. She hasn’t proven herself capable of being a good mother. But I’m not a judge. The short answer is yes, if she’s very determined and has money for a lawyer, then she will be around.”
Tall, beautiful Amber, with her long flowing hair and her perfect lips. “She was interested in starting something with him. Romantically.” She’d practically shouted it at me: Back off, I’m back now, get out. Maybe Ryan couldn’t see it, but I could.
“Maybe,” Tara said, skeptical. “It seems to me that if she’s been carrying a torch for Ryan, we would have heard from her before now. She might just be looking for an easy way to get to Dylan.”
I hadn’t thought of that. It was weird that Amber would show up after eight years to get Ryan straight into bed on the first night. I’d chalked it up to their being attracted to each other, to both of them being gorgeous. To the fact that they’d made a baby together. I was looking at it through the lens of hurt and—I could admit it—total, rabid jealousy.
But maybe Amber didn’t really want Ryan. Maybe that night eight years ago was as meaningless to her as it seemed to be to him. I’d had my own night with Ryan, which had lasted a lot longer than Amber’s, and though I’d really enjoyed it, I hadn’t been heartbroken afterward. I hadn’t called him and followed him around. I’d just shaken it off and moved on. Ryan Riggs, the player, was the kind of guy you did that with: had great sex, then moved on. Right?
That was the man Amber knew. That was the man she probably assumed she was coming back to. The guy who would drop his pants at the first invitation, especially from a beautiful woman. The guy whose feelings, if he even had them, didn’t matter.
He’d been a player, and he certainly had treated women that way, at least for a while. But the truth was, the women had treated him the same way, too. I had. Amber had. And now she was treating him the same way again.
Was I?
I’d left, and I’d told him I was turning my phone off. For the first time, it occurred to me that he might not be pissed at me. He might be hurt instead.
“If she’s after Dylan after all this time, then she’s a bitch,” I said, because it was easier to be angry at Amber than at myself.
“Well, she’s certainly selfish,” Tara said. “She’s already shown that she isn’t putting Dylan first. So, yes, she is a bit of a bitch.”
I laughed. She was so totally a counselor. I could see why she was good at her job.
“Here’s my personal advice,” Tara said. “I don’t know Ryan all that well, but I think it’s really unlikely anything happened with Amber last night. This is hard on him, Kate. Even harder than it is on you. He’s built a life for Dylan out of almost nothing, it’s taken him years, and Amber is threatening it. I personally think she’s the last person he’d jump into bed with.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Also, I saw the way he looked at you when we were at Luke and Emily’s engagement party. He rather adores you, you know.”
I closed my eyes and scrubbed a hand through my hair. “That’s insane.”
“Why? Because he’s handsome? So what? You’re the only woman he’s been interested in in years, honey. Years. You should own that. Jace is my person, my favorite person, and we’re weirdly perfect for each other, but he’s also hot. And believe me, I enjoy every minute of it.”
“Tara,” I said, “if he doesn’t marry you, then I will.”
She laughed. “Thanks, but you’re not my type. Keep me posted, okay? Good luck.”
Twenty-Five
Ryan
* * *
By the third day, things were falling apart at my house. I had to take Dylan to school and back, which meant I went in late to Riggs Auto Two and left early. The fridge emptied, the clutter piled up, the laundry was everywhere. Kate had kept her word and had never done the work of a housekeeper, but I realized now that when she was around, Dylan and I were neater. We tried harder. Now she was gone and we were both miserable.
Dylan was confused and moody after the reappearance of his mother and Kate’s leaving. Sometimes he was my son, and sometimes he was this strange alien boy I didn’t recognize. He asked me questions I didn’t know the answers to. His appetite went down. He freaked out over a slice of apple, and I couldn’t even get too mad at him. He was stressed out. I knew the feeling.
I couldn’t feel much of anything. I was hollowed-out and empty without Kate. I wished I wasn’t—I wished I could just write the whole thing off and not care. Instead I felt like someone had pr
ied open my rib cage and scraped everything out of me, put it in a bucket, and walked away. My stomach had an ache low in the pit of it, like dread. My shoulder burned. Sleep was a joke. Twice I picked up the phone to make the call to get myself some pills, and twice I put it down again.
The dialogue in my head was always the same. She doesn’t want you, loser. She never did. You were a job and a good fuck, that’s all. What woman would want in on the shit show that is your life?
It was the only conclusion I had. Amber had showed up once, and Kate had packed her bags in the middle of the night, turned her phone off, and not contacted me again. Oh well, things got hard, time to go. You don’t stick around to help the guy who’s your occasional fuck with lawyer appointments and custody shit. Kate hadn’t signed up for that. She was out.
I would be mad, if I could feel anything except the drained, awful feeling of missing her.
“I have to go soon,” I told Dex as we finished up a job at Riggs Auto Two. It was after two, and I had to go pick up Dylan. I had an alarm set on my phone so I wouldn’t be late.
Surprisingly, Dex didn’t give me shit. In fact, he hadn’t given me shit all week—not when I came in late or left early, not on Monday when I brought Dylan to the shop with me after school so we wouldn’t get behind. He just grunted and nodded and did the work that needed doing. It wasn’t much like Dex, but I wasn’t about to ask questions.
I checked my phone, then shoved it back in my pocket and found that Dex was looking at me. We were on either side of the hood of a car, and he was wiping his hands slowly with a rag.
“You need the name of a good lawyer?” he asked. “I know a few.”
Another surprise. I shook my head. “I’ve got it covered, thanks.” I already had a good lawyer—the one who’d drawn up my custody papers in the first place. I’d called him and told him what had happened with Amber. His advice was not to contact her and not to talk to her if she showed up again—basically, not to do a fucking thing. That was fine with me.
Dex scratched his chin, thinking. “You want my guess?” he said. “She’ll fuck off and go back to Thailand.”
I’d told him the bare basics of what had gone on with Amber. Not because Dex was that great a confidant, but because I wanted him to know in case Amber ever came to Riggs Auto Two looking for Dylan. “Do you know any scary guys who might convince her?” I said, trying for a joke.
“Yes,” Dex said, deadpan. “But I won’t call them. I won’t need to. She’ll fuck this up on her own.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s an idiot,” Dex said, as if this were obvious.
I looked away. That was kind of funny, but I didn’t feel like laughing.
“I got a call from a guy,” Dex said. “He sells to all the athletes in Detroit. He wanted me to find out if you still wanted those pills you were taking.”
I actually felt lightheaded. I had to put my hand on the car in front of me. I didn’t need anyone knowing that shit, but of all people, I didn’t want Dex knowing it. “He’s lying,” I said.
“No, he isn’t,” Dex said.
“Why did he call you?”
“Because he has product to move, and you haven’t answered any of his texts in months. You blocked him. He thinks you got another supplier.”
“And you know this guy?”
“I know a lot of people,” Dex said. “It doesn’t mean I like them, it just means I know them.”
I thought about Dex, about why he wasn’t a cop anymore. Some rumors said he had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t hack it, and other rumors said that he got out before he could be hit with corruption charges. The problem with Dex was that either one could be true—or neither. You never knew with him.
“You need to get better friends,” I told him.
“I don’t have any friends,” Dex said.
“I’m not taking them anymore. The pills, I mean. I stopped a while ago.”
Dex nodded. “You feel like taking them now?”
There was no point in denying it. He already knew. “All the time. But I won’t.”
“You better not,” my brother said. “Let me tell you something, Riggs. If you score—no matter who it’s from or where—I’ll know about it. And I’ll kick your teeth in. You’ll hurt so bad the Dexbleed will seem like a picnic. Now go get your kid and get out of here.”
Late that night I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Dylan was asleep in his room, but as usual my thoughts wouldn’t shut up. My head was buzzing with lack of sleep, but my body didn’t get the message. So I lay there as the two of them battled it out.
On the nightstand, my phone vibrated. I made myself wait a long moment before I picked it up. That isn’t a text from Kate, I reminded myself. You think it is, but it isn’t.
I finally picked up the phone and let myself look. I felt a jolt of energy go through me when I saw Kate’s name.
Hey, she wrote. I have to pick up a few of my things tomorrow. Just letting you know.
The empty space in my ribcage hollowed out a little more. I couldn’t let her get off that easy. That’s it, then? I wrote back. We’re done?
There was a long pause, and I thought she’d turned her phone off again. Then the dots moved.
We need to talk, she wrote, but I need some time. I’m very confused.
Welcome to the club, I texted back.
I don’t think I’m handling this very well, she wrote.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. The pain in my shoulder was nothing compared to the other pain I felt right now. Was this what it felt like to be in love with someone? How the fuck did anyone stand it? I wanted her back, but I couldn’t have her. Sure, I could track her down, make some big gesture, and maybe get her into bed—but that would be all it was. I knew that. It would just be killing time until she left again. I didn’t have some magical dick that could make a woman love me when she didn’t already. I wished I did, but I didn’t.
I could find her. I could try and convince her. But we’d seen each other every day for months, and we’d lived in the same house for weeks now. We’d talked and we’d had sex and she knew everything about me. If she wasn’t convinced, I had no idea what would do it.
Okay, I texted her. I’ll look for another nanny. Because I couldn’t do this shit by myself. I had no idea how I’d done it as long as I had. No wonder I was cracking up by the time Kate came to my doorstep.
I’d find someone else. I’d go to an agency or something. I’d get someone who I didn’t have a history with, who was in the business of taking care of kids. Someone who definitely would not live in my house and make me insane.
You should find someone, Kate wrote. I’m sorry.
Everyone is fucking sorry, I wrote back. I’m turning my phone off now.
And I did it. I turned my phone off and put it down.
It was still a long time before I closed my eyes.
Twenty-Six
Kate
* * *
Just a few more days. That was what I’d convinced myself I needed: a few more days to think things over and sort them through.
I’d spent the past few days keeping busy. I went to class and did my homework. I spent Tuesday driving around Westlake with Lauren, telling her about my business idea and looking at possible locations. She said my idea was a good one, and we checked out the competition, which turned out to be scarce in Westlake. That only made my idea seem stronger.
I read books. I talked to my parents. But at night I sat alone in my hotel room, thinking about Ryan and Dylan and wondering what they were doing. Wondering if they missed me. Wondering if they were okay.
I ran out of clean clothes, so I had to text Ryan to tell him I was going to pick up some of my things. To say sorry. Everyone is fucking sorry, he wrote, and I realized I’d hurt him. Maybe permanently. And I didn’t know what to do.
Even when I’d had a boyfriend everyone expected me to marry, it hadn’t been this hard. I’d decided that Mark wasn’t
someone I wanted to spend my life with, and I’d broken it off. I was twenty-one, and at the time I thought it was the worst thing I’d ever go through. In fact, it was a little bit uncomfortable, and that was it.
This was different. I thought about Ryan constantly. I wanted to know what he was doing, what he was thinking. I wanted to talk to him. My body missed him like crazy, especially at night when I got into bed alone.
There was no one at the house when I got there. I went around back and entered my basement apartment, grabbing some clothes and a few of the toiletries I’d forgotten. I tried not to linger, because I liked my little apartment—I’d made it my own space, filled with things I liked. I spent as little time as possible in the bedroom, where Ryan had visited me and we’d made each other crazy. I tried not to look at the bed, which was still rumpled from when I’d slept in it last.
When I finished, I walked to the basement door and I paused. I’d left a few things upstairs—a sweater, a textbook I needed. I could maybe tell Ryan to collect them for me, but that would be even more cowardly than I already was. I turned the knob and climbed the stairs.
I stepped into the living room, and the breath left my chest.
To anyone else, it looked like a messy living room—toys, games, clothes everywhere. It looked a lot like the living room I’d seen that first day I’d come for an interview. Because Ryan and Dylan lived here. They didn’t just use this space, they lived in it.
I took a step in and looked around. Dylan’s baseball jersey was crumpled up at the end of the sofa—baseball season was almost over, and he was outgrowing this jersey. He needed a new one by next season, and this one needed a washing. The video game controllers were put away—it looked like they weren’t playing the medieval knight game anymore. I wondered if they ever got to the castle.
In the kitchen, one of Dylan’s schoolbooks was on the kitchen table. It was the workbook of math problems, and next to it was a stack of papers with Dylan’s big handwriting on them, trying to figure them out. Next to that was another stack of papers—this one in Ryan’s bold, hard writing. I picked up the top sheet and read it. Ryan had sat with his son and tried to work through the same math problems, probably to see if they’d come up with the same answer.
